by the way, could you elaborate on the armlock focus in Sambo? You mentioned at your last seminar that there is an increasing distance from leglock focus, partially due to the risks inherent in leglocks in MMA I believe. Do you find that leglocks are signifcantly riskier than armlocks? A failed straight ankle lock seems to me to end in half or butterfly guard (or me getting on top), a failed straight armbar seems to often end with intended uke with top side control. Is there that much of a increase in the danger?

I think it should be expressed right now that Beorn/Blue and I aren't serious.

I'm beginning to feel the need to dole out some temp bans.

Can you tell if I'm joking?

Calm down, it's only ones and zeros.

"Your calm and professional manner of response is really draining all the fun out of this. Can you reply more like Dr. Fagbot or something? Call me some names, mention some sand in my vagina or something of the sort. You can't expect me to come up with reasonable arguments man!" -- MaverickZ

I find the leglock comments interesting due to the fact that in the higher level of sambo training the research is into new ways to get the armlocks.

We are finding that you can not get the leg of an experienced player.

It is funny you say this Mark. I tell people all the time that Sambo leg locks, while they certainly exist and very well developed, are not necessarily the "hallmark of sambo". It is a bit of a mis-nomer in my opinion...what gets us in the door of the average grappler's mind. People don't realize that to develop a good leg game, you must have a good arm game (and visa versa). People also don't realize that there are more arm submissions in sambo competitions than leg submissions.

In fact, in terms of sport sambo, I was a bit shocked at the lack of grappling I experienced when I trained at sambo 70...until I realized it was all about olympic judo there (we joked about calling it Judo 70). I actually leg locked a European sambo gold medallist there during sparring. Their willingness to go belly down and avoid grappling was dis-heartening (reference to another thread).

I did not feel this way at Kurinnoy's club though. They do quite a bit of leg work there...some scary **** too.

My experience training military combat sambo trained me in such a different way. Plus, I did not come from a judo background. My student Reilly, who was on the world team last year, had trouble reconciling the difference between how I trained him and what he saw at the worlds in terms of sport sambo. But, then he went to my coach's gym and saw combat sambo ;)

For many...it is hard to conceptualize the wide variety of "sambo" and how if affects what they call what they do...if they do sambo. Not all sambo is created equal...at least not any longer. Some of the paths have drifted very far apart.

I think some sambo circles have moved aways from legs for sure, but it depends on what you mean when you say "sambo". But, in the end, sambo, like all things must move on and legs are old news in the sambo world.